This year—­on March 11—­Johnson lost another old friend in Mr. Topham Beauclerk, of whom he said:  “No man ever was so free when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come.”

XI.—­Johnson’s Humanity to Children, Servants, and the Poor

I was disappointed in my hopes of seeing Johnson in 1780, but I was able to come to London in the spring of 1781, and on Tuesday, March 20, I met him in Fleet Street, walking, or, rather, indeed, moving along—­for his peculiar march is thus correctly described in a short life of him published very soon after his death:  “When he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of his head, and the concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make his way by that motion, independent of his feet.”  That he was often much stared at while he advanced in this manner may easily be believed, but it was not safe to make sport of one so robust as he was.

I waited on him next evening, and he gave me a great portion of his original manuscript of his “Lives of the Poets,” which he had preserved for me.

I found on visiting his friend, Mr. Thrale, that he was now very ill, and had removed—­I suppose by the solicitation of Mrs. Thrale—­to a house in Grosvenor Square.  I was sorry to see him sadly changed in his appearance.  He died shortly after.

He told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine again, for he had lately returned to it.  When I mentioned this to Johnson, he said:  “I drink it now sometimes, but not socially.”  The first evening that I was with him at Thrale’s, I observed he poured a large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily.  Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously.  He could practice abstinence, but not temperance.

“I am not a severe man,” Johnson once said; “as I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.”

This kind indulgence—­extended towards myself when overcome by wine—­had once or twice a pretty difficult trial, but on my making an apology, I always found Johnson behave to me with the most friendly gentleness.  In fact, Johnson was not severe, but he was pugnacious, and this pugnacity and roughness he displayed most conspicuously in conversation.  He could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when, to show the force and dexterity of his talents, he had taken the wrong side.  When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry.  Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus:  “My dear Boswell, let’s have no more of this.  You’ll make nothing of it.  I’d rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.”